


Live Wire

by ArcherOfArtemis



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Banter, Canon-Typical Violence, Casual Sex, Dissociation, Drug Abuse, Drug Use, Enemies to Lovers, F/F, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Mental Health Issues, Multi, Multiple Partners, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Recreational Drug Use, Secret Past, Sexual Content, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-11
Updated: 2019-02-18
Packaged: 2019-03-16 17:31:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 16,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13641078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArcherOfArtemis/pseuds/ArcherOfArtemis
Summary: Charlie is constantly making friends and bedmates of important characters across the Commonwealth, and that's a skill that could be used to the Railroad's advantage. Her skill with a gun, quick thinking, and physical prowess are assets that Deacon cannot ignore.But what really gets under his skin is that for all of her flair and friends, no one seems to know where she came from or what her motivations are, and that just cannot stand.





	1. Establishing the "Enemies" part of enemies-to-lovers

**Author's Note:**

> This WILL get explicit (it has not yet), and about half of the characters in this story are OCs.  
> Kudos and comments directly correlate to my will to write

Charlie tips her chair back on two creaking legs, resting her boots against the edge of the table. The Third Rail is her kind of place; the booze, the eye-candy, the snotty bartender that shares her name, and the ever-changing clientele that forgets her almost as quickly as she forgets them. She takes a drink from her warm beer, a quiet smile resting on her face as Magnolia continues her song, crooning and swaying to the delight of her audience.

Charlie scans the crowd, noticing a couple of dust-covered men with lumpy suit jackets enjoying a few drinks. The lumps are from concealed weapons, no doubt, but then you’d have to be stupid not to carry a weapon in Goodneighbor. Next table over, a lone drifter resting their head in one hand, staring off into space. Med-X, Charlie guesses, before her eyes continue on to the next few tables; three ladies sharing a private joke, a man and a woman sharing a plate of fried tatos, and a few lonely folks besides. Nothing out of the ordinary, and no obvious threats at the moment.

A lone man walks in, and Charlie’s mood sours. He’s got slacks and suspenders on, his white button-up oddly clean with the collar crisp, his black shoes as shiny as his bald head, with aviator sunglasses to top it all off. He blends right in with this crowd- the pre-war mobster aesthetic still permeates these streets- but Charlie recognizes him. The same man who  _ happened _ to be there when she’d visited Diamond City, and when she’d stopped in Bunker Hill,  _ and _ who had gone snooping through her things when she’d stashed them in Shenley’s Oyster Bar.

That part almost pissed her off more than the stalking: he’d gone through her stuff and hadn’t deemed any of it worth stealing.

This man wasn’t nearly as sly as he thought. After Charlie caught wind of what he was doing, she’d done her own reconnaissance and followed him for a while. She’d managed to follow him around for nearly a week, which wasn’t easy. He’d moved all around Boston, never staying in one place for more than eight hours. Except the church. There was a fifty-fifty chance he’d stayed there for at least two days, or that he’d gone out a different way than he’d come in. Either way, it had left her curious.

Charlie continues to nurse her beer, carefully concealing her emotions so that she looks relaxed and unaware. When she finishes the Gwinnett, she orders another from Whitechapel and resumes her people-watching. The man is leaning against the wall, face pointing towards Magnolia. The glasses make it impossible to know where his eyes are actually resting, though, and Charlie has a feeling they’re resting on her.

When Magnolia’s set finishes, there’s some polite (and some too-enthusiastic) cheering, with Charlie taking the middle ground and whistling. Magnolia gracefully curtsies and steps off the stage for her break. Half of the patrons leave with her, and Charlie takes that opportunity to stand and head toward the back room.

“Alma,” Charlie calls out, and the stoned ghoul turns her head slowly toward the noise, a smile bubbling across her face.

“Yes, sweetie?” Alma asks, her high-pitched French accent twisted by the damage radiation did to her vocal chords.

“I’m gonna need something…” Charlie waves her hand in a so-so motion as she tries to find the proper phrasing, “... that’ll help me in hand-to-hand, but won’t make me freak out like a supermutant in an algebra class. Maybe kill some pain, too”

Alma titters, nodding. “Something to wake you up, dear, I know juuust the thing.” She rummages through her bag, flipping open a few compartments before settling on a particular vial. She attaches a fresh needle and hands it to Charlie. “Some psychojet- it’s my special brew. Last you a little longer, won’t get you quite as high,” she says with an apologetic pout.

“It’s perfect, Almie, thank you,” Charlie says, taking the needle and getting right to business.

“What’s the matter, darling?”

“Oh, it’s just,” Charlie winces as she presses the plunger down to start the injection, “some stupid boy.”

“Oh, Charlie,” Alma says with a tut. “You don’t need to fight him! Let me send William instead.” Alma turns to smile up at her bodyguard, who gives a grunt from behind crossed arms. “You can just stay with me, we’ll trip-sit each other.”

“Next time, okay? I gotta handle this one on my own or he’ll never take the hint.”

“Okay…” Alma says, “you always have such awful luck with men, Char.”

“Don’t I know it.”

Charlie sets the empty syringe aside for recycling, and stands with a bit of a wobble before finding her feet again. She heads back out to the main room of the Third Rail and zeroes in on tall, pale, and creepy. No more dancing around. She makes a beeline toward him and he cracks a smirk.

“How you doin’, beautiful?” He says, his voice light and smooth.

Charlie keeps her voice quiet, her face flirtatious, and leans in to whisper in his ear. “You can come outside with me without making a scene or I can drag you out to the alley and beat you more for makin’ me waste my time, catch my drift?” She leans into his chest and smiles up at him, looking like a drunken girl in lust to the rest of the bar’s patrons.

“Whatever the lady wants,” he says, playing his part well enough for Charlie to give a predatory smile.

She ushers him out of the Third Rail, one hand on his back as she practically shoves him through the doors. The bouncer ignores Charlie’s antics- it wouldn’t be the first time she’d excitedly dragged a stranger from the bar.

Charlie throws the man into a nearby alleyway, pressing him against the wall as she looks around for any possible onlookers.

“You have until the count of five to tell me why the fuck you’re following me, and then I start bashing your face in, alright?” Charlie says, narrowing her eyes.

“Hey, now. No need for all of that,” the man says, annoyingly calm. “I haven’t been following you, I’m just a drifter, same as yourself.”

“Uh-huh, sure,” Charlie says, lifting one finger. “You happen to be in Diamond City same time I roll into town, dressed as a security guard. Then,” she raises a second finger, “you’re acting like a trader when I get into Bunker Hill.”

“What are you talking about?” He asks, leaning against the brick wall as comfortably as he can with Charlie’s arm across his chest, holding him down. “Didya see another bald guy-”

“With the exact same glasses as you? Yes,” she interrupts him. She raises a third finger, “You walk into my favorite bar the first night I’m visiting it in weeks,” she continues. “You rifled through the shit I’d stashed when I’d only been gone for an hour,” she’s got four fingers up now, and she looks at the man meaningfully. “And the very worst thing is that you never changed your fucking soap. Smells like coffee.”

His face changes from a sly grin to dawning horror. He shoots his hands up in front of his face as Charlie pulls back a fist.

“Wait! Wait! Shit, okay, you got me!”

Charlie completes the punch, the drugs in her system deadening the pain that should be shooting through her knuckles as they meet his cheekbone.

“Fuck!” he spits, looking dazed. He rubs his cheek and looks at Charlie, working his jaw with a groan.

“Start talking.”

“Okay,” he shrugs, holding up his hands in a gesture of surrender. “I followed you because you helped a synth.”

Charlie’s eyes narrow again. “And you didn’t kill me over it?”

“That’s kind of my organization’s thing- helping synths. I was wondering if you’d be a good fit and- well, you figured me out. You might be better than I’d originally thought.” His voice has a bounce to it, like he’s telling a joke.

“Oh. You’re with the railroad. You could’ve just fucking said so,” Charlie says, stepping away from him. “Your methods of recruitment are, uh, how to put it delicately, fucking invasive. Everyone’s worried about the fucking institute spying on us, and then you’re out here,” she gestures at him, raising her hands, “stalking people.”

“In my defense, I’d never been caught doing it before.”

“Not really helping.” Charlie grimaces. “At all.”

“Can’t be too careful. Sometimes you gotta get to know people before they even know you’re getting to know them. It’s a very involved vetting process.”

“I’m not going to argue over this, because it’s stalking. Tell you what, though, I’m done here. We go our separate ways, and if I ever see you again, I’ll make you wish I’d left you bleeding out in this alley, alright?” Charlie smiles and pats his face, tapping the bruise that’s beginning to spread under his eye.

“If you can recognize me,” he says, with that shit-eating grin plastered on his face.

 

Glory finds him the next morning, outside the church. He’s tied up with his own suspenders, a live grenade in his mouth.


	2. Follow the Freedom Trail

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After making a routine drop-off, Charlie recounts her conflict with Deacon to General CherryBomb.  
> Alt title: Deacon Gets Bullied in Front of His Own Mom.

Charlie is finally able to go about her business largely unhindered by the bald man’s unnerving presence. The first day without him is spent recuperating from Alma’s drugs; the first night is spent reveling in another of her homemade concoctions.

Charlie continues her trek to scavenge old-world wealth from dilapidated buildings around the commonwealth. A few circuit boards here, some gasoline there, and occasionally she manages to find her favorite: fresh fusion cores, always worth ten times their weight in caps.

Charlie stops by the minutemen’s settlements with enough regularity that each of the Castle’s guards know her by name, or at least recognize her bright red mop of hair. She stops in with a full duffle bag and jerry can about three weeks after her back-alley confrontation. She sets them down in front of Garvey with a bright smile.

He gives her a small laugh. “Got everything on the list?” he asks.

“I brought everything _and_ the kitchen sink,” she says, sitting down in the dusty courtyard and pulling the zipper back. “The circuitry was easy to find, funnily enough. It was the gears that turned out to be a bit of a bitch. Had to field strip too many pocket watches to count to get as many as we were after.”

“Well, thanks,” he says, offering his gloved hand for her to shake. When she accepts it, he smiles. “Really. Thank you. The General’s gonna be really pleased about this, she’s been trying to beef up security for a while now.”

“Glad I could help,” Charlie says, “though I couldn’t carry all the oil I’d collected. I left a stash at the Red Rocket near Big John’s Salvage- here, let me show you.” Charlie digs her old pipboy out of her duffle, switching the screen over to the map and zooming in to show the approximate location. “It’s hidden under some rubble, I left a scrap of blue fabric to mark it.”

“Thanks,” Preston says with a smile. “I’ll let the General know; she’ll send some of the men out to round it up.”

“It’s not a problem,” Charlie says, waving her hand. “Though, about my payment?”

“Of course!” Preston says with a start. “Let me go see what I can requisition out of medical storage- I’ll be right back.”

Charlie watches him walk away while she continues to unload her delivery near the radio station they have set up in the middle of the courtyard. Not exactly the easiest way to earn chems, but it’s more stable than others. She stands and dusts off her pants, idly looking around the Castle, glancing at the wide-open archways in the walls, the little trade stands that have been set up, the minutemen going about their days.

The General herself walks out of the armory, trailed by three others. Two of them- dressed in old-world style coats and hats- are minutemen, and they seem to be talking with a lot of energy. An argument, no doubt, that they want the General to solve. The General’s brow is furrowed, but her companion is smirking slightly. The General has custom-made armor pieces set over her vault suit, dark brown skin tanned further by the Commonwealth’s sun, vitiligo splotches decorating her face and hands, and unstyled curly hair. Her companion is her opposite in every way, from his too-casual attitude and boring, unblemished skin, to his greaser-style aesthetic that includes a meticulously kept pompadour, skinny jeans, a leather jacket, and a familiar set of aviator sunglasses.

Charlie waves to them enthusiastically, catching the General’s eye.

“A moment,” the General says to the two minutemen, leaving them behind as she and her companion make their way to the center of the courtyard.

“Look, Cherry!” Charlie says, pointing at her delivery. “Am I your favorite scavver or what?”

CherryBomb’s eyes light up as she scans them over the circuit boards. She jogs over to inspect further, leaving her companion to lag behind.

“Char! Where did you find all of these? We’ll have to get them moved into storage right away-” she whistles, and the two minutemen who had been arguing mill over with sour expressions. “Haylee, Jared, Get these into storage and logged on the clipboard, I’ll be there to help with the turret construction later today.”

“Found ‘em out near University Point- it’s not completely scavenged yet, since it’s still so wild. Plenty of old-world tech waiting to be smashed open.”

“How’d you manage to get past the synths? I thought the place was swarming with ‘em.” CherryBomb’s companion asks, his voice thick with a southern drawl.

“I can usually get around without being noticed, when I remember to keep silent so that nothing gives me away,” she says, pointedly staring at him.

Cherry laughs, thumping him on the back. “She’s from the south, Deke. You would have been better sticking with the Californian Newscaster voice you usually have.”

“And how would you know what a Californian sounds like?” He asks, his tone as casual as ever.

“How do you?” Cherry asks, fluttering her eyelashes in mock-innocence.

Charlie bristles, narrowing her eyes at Cherry’s nonchalance. “So, you knew he had some… weird _thing_ about me but you let him hang around?”

“Turns out he’s just weird in general. I never got the full story from him, but I take it he wasn’t able to recruit you. ‘Personal differences’ was the phrase he used.”

He must have seen a sadistic gleam in Charlie’s eyes, because the man tried to interject before she could speak. One look from CherryBomb set him right, and he pursed his lips, aviators pointed anywhere but at the conversation.

“See, I’d caught him staring all over the ‘Wealth, thinking he was all suave and secretive, then he tried to deny it when I finally pressed him.”

CherryBomb pretend to wince, sucking in a breath. “So you got your ass beat, no shame in that,” she said, patting his arm with a gleam in her eye that promised she’d tease him about it to no end. He attempted to speak again, but Cherry held up her hand and looked to Charlie to continue.

“Yeah, I roughed him up, hard not to when he was all self-smug and didn’t even fully realize I _knew_ he was full of shit, but the best part was when I wrestled him to the ground and got his stupid suspenders tied around his arms. He said some weird gross banter shit to try and get me to stop, but y’know, we’ve _all_ heard worse from raiders so that wasn’t an issue to just tune out. But then I had a predicament- I’d either have to carry him back to his little hideout or make him march. And I didn’t trust him to march, but I wouldn’t wanna walk around that part of town without my gun-hand free.

“So I go get Alma and William, and Alma’s just _delighted_ , as usual. William takes one look at this guy, who’s still tryin’ to rattle off some shit about how all of this is ‘just a bit too kinky for a first date’ and he pulls out some duct tape, so _that_ makes everyone’s life easier.

“Y’know, until he chewed through it. He threatened he’d bring some gunners down on us by yelling, and I believed him because look at the dude, he ain’t exactly throwing off ‘calm, cool, and collected’ vibes. So I put him down, look him straight in the eye, and let him know that if he’s really interested in killing us all, there are easier ways to do it. I gave him a live grenade, stuffed it in his mouth, and we got the rest of the way without him saying a goddamned word.”

Cherry nods through the story, covering her mouth with her hand. “Sounds like you were all lucky to survive, and maybe one of you learned a lesson from all that.”

“It’s a perfectly fine way to gather intel,” he says, “ _and_ it’s how I scoped you out, didn’t hear you complaining when I stuck up for you at HQ.”

“Wait- you’re, what, _part_ of his little club?” Charlie sputters.

“Yeah, and you should be, too, Char. It’s right up your alley, and you’d love the boss lady. I won’t waste your time with the pro-synth spiel, you could probably phrase it better than I can, but you should know that these folks are actually helping people. Directly. Deacon is an outlier in the group dynamic, and his presence should let you know how hard-up they are for help.” CherryBomb leans in to whisper in Charlie’s ear. “You’re not officially part of the Minutemen, so I can’t order you to go, but if you were, I would.”

“You don’t have to tell me twice,” Charlie says with affection. “If you think it’s a good idea, it probably is, Miss General.”

“Sorry that Deacon’s so bad at first impressions. He kinda grows on you after a while.”

Charlie scrunches her nose. “Like a fungus?”

“ _Exactly_ like a fungus,” CherryBomb laughs. “You’ll have to bring him with you, to get you in the door. Don’t pull that sour face, I’d love to go with you but I gotta stay and be The General. The worst part is that I’m gonna miss the girls’ reactions to meeting someone who left Deacon in such a compromising position on their doorstep: you’re basically a folk hero to them."


	3. Caps, Belief, and Shiny Things

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Charlie meets Desdemona, Deacon is reprimanded for alienating a promising recruit. Sort of.  
> Alt title: Deacon Get Bullied by His OTHER Mom

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i think this is technically slow burn now.... i didnt mean to.... but .......

Charlie gets some stimpacks and med-x from Garvey, about ten doses of the former, two of the latter. He apologizes for their stores being low, but assures her that she can pick up other essentials at a steep discount from their shops. She browses their wares, Deacon hovering just outside of her personal bubble all the while. She stocks up on ammo and buys a few portions of pre-packed food, then refills her water bottles at the spigot.

She looks Deacon over, huffing sharply before securing her pack over her shoulders. “You try any funny business…” she trails off, letting his imagination fill in the blanks.

“You made enough threats at our _last_ encounter,” he says.

“Then they still stand.” She picks up the pace, heading out of the Castle’s large entrance with a nod and a wave to the guards.

She’d hoped Deacon would manage to keep his mouth shut without a gag this time, but that wishful thinking was dashed before they were even out of sight of the Castle. “So, how’d a southern belle like yourself end up all the way out here?” He asks.

“How’d you manage to watch me for all that time and not learn anything about me?” She mutters, crouching behind the corner of a dilapidated building to listen and watch for enemies.

“You play things pretty close to the chest,” he whispers, crouching down beside her.

“Exactly.”

“Guess I should’ve seen that coming,” he says, cracking a smirk.

She exhales sharply through her nose and moves forward, cradling her gun and keeping an ear out for danger. “I don’t like you,” she says, “I’m sure that’s patently obvious. I don’t like when people snoop on me.”

“You don’t have a problem snooping on others.”

“Tell you what- if you tell me something about yourself, then I’ll return the favor.”

“I can do that,” he says.

“Then by all means, go on.”

“My name isn’t Deacon. It’s a code name.”

Charlie snorts. “Yeah, no shit. Your HQ is a church, I figured that out on my own.”

“I guess that’s fair, since your name is fake, too,” he says, and Charlie is careful not to let her surprise show- she doesn’t miss a beat.

“What makes you say that?”

“A magician never reveals his secrets,” he says, and he must think he’s being charming with his smirk and the flourish of his hands as he gestures for her to lead the way through a garbage-filled alley.

“Well, if information we _already know_ counts in this little game, then I can tell you that I’m partial to Gwinnett Ale or that I’m a redhead.”

“Then rework the game- there’s no way to know what we know about each other, considering our previous _observations_ . I’ll guess something about you, and you tell me if I’m right, then we’ll vice-versa it until we’re just the _best_ of friends,” he says with what Charlie believes might be his own Signature Brand of Sarcasm™.

“How will I know if you’re lying?”

“How will _I_ know if _you’re_ lying? That’s just part of the game.”

“Sounds like an exercise in futility.”

“It’ll be good practice for all of those exercises you’ll get from high command at the Railroad.”

Charlie snorts, and the conversation stops as they near a roving pack of raiders. They’re both well out of sight, ducking and moving behind the crumbling buildings with practiced ease. They have to hunker down and wait them out for a few minutes, but once the danger has passed they continue to creep toward the church.

“You’re a vaultie,” Deacon says as they stroll up the alley toward the front door.

“Since I own a pip-boy, that _is_ statistically likely,” Charlie says with a nod. “You’re trying to resume the game that I never agreed to play in order to distract me, so that I don’t rub in the fact that I’d followed you here before, and that’s how I knew to leave you here.”

“I appreciate that, by the way. That you didn’t kill me,or leave me somewhere that I’d never be found.”

Charlie couldn’t think of a response to that, or at least one that didn’t reveal more of herself than she’d allow. It was only fairness that made her do that- and her thirst for petty revenge. Deacon was a _creep_ , no doubt, but he’d had opportunities to steal from her, to embarrass her, even to kill her, and he hadn’t. Seemed a shame to waste someone like that, especially someone who worked for the railroad. Keeping quiet wasn’t an option, though, because he could read whatever he wanted in a silence.

“You didn’t kill me, either,” she says. Then she’s inside the church and silence is required. The ferals scattered around barely react to their presence as they sneak in, Charlie following Deacon’s lead.

When the door opens, Charlie is still berating Deacon over the fact that their super-secret passcode is fucking ‘RAILROAD’ when the lights flare up and the woman in front-and-center with red hair and a stance that screams ‘ _you will respect me’_ flicks her cigarette in annoyance.

“If you’re quite done,” the woman says, and Charlie snaps to attention with a blush creeping up her cheeks, mentally bashing herself for allowing that to be her introduction to The Railroad. “Deacon, explain this.”

“She’s _the woman, the myth, the legend,_ boss. Legend, meet Desdemona. She’s the ‘boss lady’ CherryBomb mentioned.”

A tall woman with white hair, dark skin, and a very heavy gun guffaws, then points her gun away from Charlie. “And you took her through the newbie entrance? She’s practically part of the family after that stunt she pulled.”

“I am a sucker for tradition,” Deacon says.

Desdemona pinches the bridge of her nose briefly, then looks to Charlie. “You want to join?”

“Yes.”

“Are you willing to risk your life for others, even synths?”

“Yes.”

“No hesitation? Deacon, do her words line up with your observations?”

“Yeah,” he says

“Then welcome. We can always use some help around here. From Deacon’s reports, you don’t need much training where stealth and firearms are concerned, so we’ll be focused on teaching you procedures for the time being. First order of business is a codename.”

Glory snorts. “Do we get a vote? Because I’m voting for ‘Charmer,’ seeing as-” Charlie notices the look Desdemona shoots her, and it would be impossible to miss Deacon pulling his finger across his neck in a slicing motion, “-she got to skip the usual vetting process, what? What did you two think I was gonna say?”

“You should let her pick one that comes naturally, Glory.” Desdemona takes a pull from her cigarette.

“Magpie,” Charlie says. ‘Legend’ wouldn’t have been bad, but since Deacon picked it…. No. “Maggie would work when we shouldn’t be using names that are obviously codenames.”

Desdemona gives a nod. “Magpie. We’ll get you in the system, then we’ll have Deacon show you the ropes.”

Charlie sighs and pulls a hand down her face. “Would _any_ other agent be available?”

“Aw, I’m not _so_ bad,” Deacon grins.

“This is as much for his own sake as yours. You two will need to get along for you to continue to work with us,” Charlie almost rolls her eyes, but the next words out of Desdemona’s mouth make Charlie and Deacon reel, “and that goes double for Deacon.”

With that, Desdemona and the rest of her crew head back into the main part of the headquarters, leaving Deacon and Charlie behind. A grin spreads across Charlie’s face.

“And she accuses _me_ of excessive theatricality,” Deacon complains.

“Good thing your game has already made us, and I quote, ‘the _best_ of friends.’ Y’know, since your job rests on me no longer hating your guts.”

“Yeah, I might need to have a discussion with her about that.”

“Doesn’t seem like she’s the kind to change her mind.”

“You catch on quick,” he says, “but I have my ways.”

“Good fucking luck, buddy.” Charlie starts to follow Desdemona, entering the dark tunnel with her hand glued to the side for stability.

“Thanks for the well wishes, _partner_ ,” he says, and Charlie has to fight the urge to turn around and deck him. She glares at him over her shoulder.

“If you assume I would hesitate to bring Desdemona down on both of us, you didn’t stalk me nearly as well as you think, _partner_ ,” she spits.


	4. Quid Pro Quo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Deacon considers his future with his new partner.

_None of this was ever going to go well_ , he thinks, as he trudges behind Charlie- Magpie- whatever her name _truly_ is. She reminds him of himself, when he was younger and angrier. He’d at least been able to focus his anger on revenge, but she seems aimless, and aimless anger is bad. It lashes out, and he feels like it’s lashing out solely at him. She’d been pleasant with CherryBomb- Fixer- _Nora_ , and Glory. Maybe too pleasant with Glory, now that he thinks about it. Boss lady likes her, but then again Des doesn’t like their dynamic, so it's a toss-up on that one. She sees Magpie’s potential, at least, and she’d needed less convincing than she had with Fixer. Desdemona says it’s because of Deacon’s intel: the numerous and detailed reports he’d turned in over the months since he’d first noticed Magpie.

Deacon’s pretty sure Des just has a thing for redheads.

He’s got to think- how is he going to fix this? Magpie isn’t the worst person in the Commonwealth, at least. She didn’t kill him, and she certainly could have. William definitely could have, if she’d asked, and she didn’t. That at least points to a regard for others’ lives, an indescribably important trait in a partner and in a railroad member. And her codename is apt- she does like shiny things, and he’s watched her scavenge nearly anything that isn’t bolted down or too heavy to move, and steal items that particularly caught her fancy. Gifts probably wouldn’t go over well, though, it’d be too obvious, and she’s too actively hostile.

He’s instinctively settled in behind her again, he realizes. Just like when they were going to HQ, she’s taking point. He’s supposed to be showing her the ropes, but she put her pip-boy on, along with a quick disguise (she straightened her hair, threw on a vault suit that CherryBomb had donated to the group a while back, and rubbed some dirt on her face) and she’s been following her map ever since.

He tries to follow her movements, place his feet where she puts hers, watch the way she observes her surroundings. She’s good at staying quiet, anticipating dangers, being vigilant. She turns her ears to suspicious areas. It makes it harder to know what she’s paying attention to- most humans take in the vast majority of outside information through their eyes. Ghouls rely more on sound, and synths usually have heightened senses in general. Charlie being a synth would explain a lot, and it’s not the first time Deacon has entertained that line of thinking, but then again, how could he prove it? Asking her is not very high on the list of ways to make her at least _pretend_ to like him, for Des’s sake. If she is a synth and still affiliated with the institute, they’ve really upped their game, and he’s fucked. If she is a synth and she’s broken free from the institute without railroad assistance, then even better. More likely: she’s a human, born from a human mother.

Deacon flexes his fingers around the forestock of his gun, tapping his trigger finger against the guard idly.

Normally, with a new recruit on their first trip out, he’d pull his ‘I’m-totally-a-synth-here’s-my-recall-code’ routine, but she’s already on edge, already expecting lies. To come right out of the gate with that would be laying it on a bit too thick.

“So you’re actually cool with synths, huh?” he ventures.

“Yeah.”

“What if I told you one of the main guys in HQ is a synth?”

“It’d be weird if y’all were all human, considering your line of work. I wouldn’t trust that sort of organization, if I was a synth.”

“And what if I told you _I’m_ a synth?”

“You aren’t.”

“How would you know?”

“Synths don’t scar like that,” she says, and for once it doesn’t seem like a bite, like she’s lashing out. She glances at his neck briefly, then her eyes flit around his face, and he grimaces.

“It could be from a face-swap,” he says

“Some of them are, I’d bet. The ones near your temples and your jawline. But not all of them.”

“Could be cosmetic additions, to really sell the look.”

“They wouldn’t be that ragged, Deacon. Even Commonwealth surgeons don’t want to risk that sort of massive infection.”

“You seem to know a lot about this…” Risky, pushing her for information, but he’s never seen her so off-balance, so resigned… so _melancholy_. At least, not up close. Maybe she won’t immediately close up this time.

“I’ve known a few synths, I know what it looks like when they get injured,” her jaw tightens. She’s closed. He’ll have to remember to ask about that later.

“I should get my money back. Last face swap I _told_ them to fix that up. Just can’t find good help these days,” he shakes his head and runs a thumb over the scar on his neck. Little does she know, he has had it surgically altered. It used to be much bigger, angrier, a red blotch scrawled across skin with a heavy ink pen, raised and cracking and entirely too noticeable. It feels like he got it a lifetime ago.

“Tell me about it,” she says. They press through under a crumbling bridge, and it’s the first time Deacon is close enough to notice Charlie holding her breath as she goes. Once they’re out and making their way toward a thicket of trees (for cover), Deacon jogs for a few steps to catch up.

“Didn’t take you for superstitious,” he says.

“Bridges make every noise echo, it’s just smart to try and reduce as much noise as possible when you’re under one. And southerners are notoriously superstitious.”

“About that- you don’t speak with much of an accent.”

“Neither do you,” she points out, deflecting in her usual aggravating but astute manner. Maybe it’s only aggravating because he’s used to verbally dodging and weaving, not _combating_ those tactics. “I assume it’s for the same reason,” she continues, “neither of us want people poking around about where we’re from.”

“Point taken. I guess it’s only fair to let you know that I’m southern, myself.”

“Yeah?” Disbelief colors her tone.

“Yep, Virginia, born and raised.”

She snorts. “That ain’t southern. The culture is completely different.”

“Richmond was the capital of the Confederacy.”

“And thank fuck that doesn’t have anything to do with _actual_ southern culture. Anyone who clings to the fucking Civil War as part of their identity is considered a proper Neanderthal by real southerners. Our culture is about hospitality, manners, and good food, not wars fought hundreds of years ago, and especially not any wars before The Big One. Bygones and all that. Especially with the resurgence in patriotism from the mid 1900’s up ‘til the bombs fell… All confederate sympathizers have been considered podunk traitors since before the oldest ghouls can remember.”

“Well said.”

“Was that a test?”

“Maybe, of sorts. We are The Railroad, after all. Good to know where sympathies lie.” Plus, she’d managed to give him more information about herself. She was probably from one of the states that bordered the Gulf, with her ‘Real Southerner’ rhetoric, and she knew some history- more than most, at least, which threw more evidence of her being a vaultie into the pile. “People who empathize with the Confeds tend to be more aligned with the Brotherhood, or the Institute, not the people fighting synth slavery.”

“Trust me, you don’t have to worry about that shit from me. Do I seem like the kind of person who loves to follow a commanding officer? Or some dude who calls himself _Father?_ ” she spits for emphasis. “Not fucking likely.”

Y’know, maybe things _could_ go well, after all. Deacon laughs. “And what about _our_ fearless leader? Gonna follow her orders?”

“I think I’ll follow my partner’s lead there. You tell me, how often do you disobey direct orders from Mother Dearest?”

“I prefer to think of it as creative reinterpretation of orders.”

“Then I guess I’ll have no problem living up to your golden standard. Now where the fuck is that dead drop?” She wheels around, glaring at every mailbox in the vicinity until she spies the railsign on one of them and pulls out a scrap of paper, glances briefly at the contents, and passes it to Deacon. “Okay, wiseguy, what’s going on with this?” She asks, already moving forward to duck into an alleyway, out of sight of the main road.

“Just a bit of code,” he says. “It’ll point us to a safehouse that we need to check out, or a synth that needs our help, or some other Railroad business. What’s the time on your pip-boy?”

“‘Bout two A.M.”

“Depending on the urgency, we might wanna settle down for the night. I hate travelling when it’s light out.”

“Fair enough. I’ll scope the buildings nearby, you stay put and decode the message.”

He nods, she turns on her heel and starts to investigate some of the old houses, skirting around boarded-up doors to peek through windows, tilting her head this way and that, listening as much as she’s looking.

Deacon’s already decoded the message, but faking concentration on that gives him a solid alibi as he uses his time thinking up more solutions to his and Magpie’s little problem. Well, _his_ little problem. He still can’t get a proper bearing on Charlie, even after all this time. Where she’s from, why she came to the commonwealth, or what her agenda is. She’s a vaultie, probably, she has a pip-boy and historical knowledge. She’s from the south, presumably farther than most people would travel unless they were running. She’s alone, which points to either family problems or a tragic backstory. She said she’s known synths and has seen them injured, possibly by the Institute? Or is that a sympathetic story?

She does drugs, enough to keep up with the crowd in Goodneighbor, and she’s been helping the mayor clear out some problem areas nearby. She’s also helping out the Minutemen, is on a first-name basis with their top two officers, and now she’s with the Railroad.

Is she really _just_ here because she has a big heart, wants to help the little guy? Unlikely, she's got a sense of fairness but is by no means altruistic. Is she working off guilt? Or is she gathering intel for another group? After all, no vaultie pops out of the ground knowing how to survive the way she does. She might have a teacher, or a group, someone she answers to.

Which is interesting.


	5. Frenemies Stage of Enemies-To-Lovers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Deacon and Charlie get to know one other, and what the other knows, better.  
> Alt Title: Who is this Other Dog??

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i was supposed to have gotten to the porn by now, and if you think YOU want the porn to exist already, let me tell you, we are in this hell together

At least when he’s scheming he’s being fucking quiet.

She tries to understand, really, she does, but the concept of trailing someone for the sole purpose of gathering intel is foreign to her. When she was following him (which is perfectly fine behavior, because he started it), it was only so that she could scare him later. But if she’s gonna be stuck with him, then maybe, just maybe, assuming he doesn’t fuck it up for himself, she’ll give him one single solitary chance to prove he’s not a totally incompetent creep.

That forgiveness isn’t easy when she feels like she’s waiting for the other shoe to drop. It’s just that most people she’s spied on, it was for an upper hand later, blackmail, or so that she could steal from them. Or kill them. That had to happen sometimes, even if she didn’t like to think about it. That’s just how the world is now, and raiders don’t count. 

 _Focus,_ she thinks. She can feel Deacon watching her, practically hear the wheels turning in his head.

She climbs onto a dumpster, pauses to listen for activity, then sticks her head through an empty window frame. By the dust all around, the water damage to the carpet, and the moth-eaten mess on the sagging bed, she can tell that the window has been broken for at least a decade. There are signs that the place has been picked through, but the layer of dirt lying on the floor shows no signs of recent disturbance. She makes sure there aren’t any lingering bits of glass in the frame then pulls herself through, making a beeline for the ruined bathroom and pressing her back to the wall next to the door, just in case someone comes to investigate.

She breathes slowly, evenly, for at least a minute and a half, listening for any activity within the building. When she feels steady she takes her pack off of her shoulders and digs out some med-x. Only half a dose now, just to help her sleep, and help her keep calm. She wants to give him a chance, but she just _can’t_ most of the time. Too high-strung. The med-X will help, she knows.

Time to do a sweep. She searches each room carefully, moving slowly and keeping her footfalls light and noiseless. The house has two stories but not very many rooms and it doesn’t take Charlie long to scope the place out. A few bloatflies bumble around outside, but she’d prefer not to draw anything else with a gunshot, so she leaves them be.

Later, after they’ve moved the only usable mattress to a room upstairs that is still mostly intact and given themselves an escape route (out the window, roll down the porch’s roof and stick the landing in the softer grass), they stretch their legs (her with a view out the window, him with a view out the door) and eat dinner- chips and snack cakes and jerky, with a fresh can of water to wash it down.

“So... the message?” Charlie asks.

“Got most of it, it’s an old safehouse that needs our attention, fell into the hands of some unsavory types. Don’t know the exact location or if it’s Institute or raiders,” he shrugs, “but I still got work to do.”

“When are you gonna teach me the code?”

“When I can trust you, after you’re an agent maybe.”

“Is that not what I am?”

“Nah, there’s far more pomp and circumstance when you make agent. You’re just a tourist, gotta be escorted for a while and tested. Then, hey, might give you a little more info, or a particularly important job, but not all at once. Not upfront. That’s the nature of the beast.”

“I suppose that’s only fair. You have to stay suspicious to stay alive,” she mumbles, eyes downcast.

 _Oh,_ he thinks. _Tragic backstory_. It’s not often that he hates being right, but he’s not exactly surprised. Ninety-nine percent of people in the Commonwealth have tragic backstories, if not more. Hell, even he has a- no, no, not going to think of that.

“How’d you meet Fixer?” he asks, distracting himself from that train of thought. Charlie tilts her head in confusion. “It’s what we call Cherry, in this organization.”

“You never asked her about me?”

“Never said that,” he smiles that easy lopsided smile he has when he thinks he’s being clever.

“And I guess you’re not gonna tell me what she said, then?”

“I’m more interested in what you have to say.”

Charlie breathes for a moment, rolling her shoulders to try and loosen some of her tension and give herself a moment to think. “I met her before she was the General, in Goodneighbor. Feels like ages ago,but I guess it’s only been a little more than a year? Hancock introduced us, in his office. Looking back on it, I think Hancock planned it out. It was a good night, not all crazy like his office gets sometimes. Just the three of us, and Fahrenheit, of course. He was singing our praises to each other, and between that and the chems, the booze… I dunno, we just hit it off.”

“And you and Fixer…?”

“We fucked, if that’s what you’re after. What, you two haven’t?”

Deacon is surprised, to say the least. Sputtering, to be honest. He’s surprised that he’s surprised, and that’s the strangest thing to him. “No, no we haven’t. I don’t think either of us are interested in each other like that. I’m not exactly one to get tied down.”

“Neither is she,” Charlie says, “neither am I. Fucking doesn’t require a picket fence, Deacon. Just usable parts. And you don’t fuck someone you just met if you’re _the kind to get tied down_ . Anyway, after that she would sometimes stop by and ask for my help clearing out places that she wanted to settle or helping older settlements with whatever it was they wanted so that they’d have a reason to support the minutemen. I was fine following her into battle, because, I mean, that _view_.” Charlie raises her eyebrows suggestively. “Plus she always paid well. I trust her. She’s got one of those faces, don’tcha think?”

“You know, Desdemona looks down on fraternization between agents. She doesn’t want one of us to be compromised, or value one agent over our mission.”

“Good thing I’m not an agent,” Charlie takes a sip of her water, never breaking her gaze from those sunglasses, “besides, I’m not gonna throw the whole operation under the bus just because I’ve seen Fix’s vagina. Ignoring the fact that there’s no scenario where I’d comply with the Institute’s interrogations, she’d kill me if she found out I’d done anything so stupid.” CherryBomb’s pragmatism is well-known, and one of the qualities Charlie likes about her.

“You’re right about that,” Deacon says, rubbing his jaw absentmindedly.

“I’m surprised she didn’t tell you.”

“She knows you like your privacy.”

“So she didn’t tell you anything about me?” Charlie presses.

“That’s not what I said.”

“One day I’m going to deck you for speaking in circles like that.”

“I think you already have. Memory is a little fuzzy, though,” Deacon taps his cheek where she’d left a bruise after their first direct conversation.

“I answered one of your questions, only fair that I get to ask one,” Charlie slouches back, pulling her backpack closer. She removes her sleeping bag and rolls it out. “What happened after I left you at the church?”

“Glory found me.”

“The one who called me Charmer?” Charlie asks, looking for any sign of a reaction. “You been embellishing your reports? Because she apparently wasn’t calling me that for getting into Fixer’s pants.”

He’s almost grimacing. She can see his jaw tighten briefly. He’s hiding his reactions, like he usually does, but the fact that he’s not covering it up with some faux-suave smirk means she’s tripped him up. “She was trying to flirt. It’s how she is whenever a new girl comes through. Trust me, you’re at least the fourth girl she’s tried that line on.”

“Trust _you_?” Charlie looks at her reflection on his glasses, an amused grin showing teeth. “Fixer told me somethin’ once: ‘You can’t trust everyone.’ Said some bald fuck told her that.”

Deacon’s shoulders bounce as he tips his head back to laugh, then, “She pulled the recall-code trick on you, didn’t she?”

“She did.” Charlie smiles with him. He’s not so bad, like this, when he’s just a little self-aware. Laughing at himself, at the gall of their mutual friend. “If it makes you feel any better, it didn’t work then either.”

“Yeah? What was her tell?”

“She has a certain quirk of her mouth when she’s playing a prank,” Charlie pushes on her cheek to pull the corner of her lip back, demonstrating. “Same look she has when she hacks a computer.”

“She’s gotta work on that,” he says, shaking his head. “She had that same look when she noticed you in the courtyard, you know. Only issue is I can’t decide who she was pranking.”

“Well that’ll keep me up at night,” Charlie says, yawning. She stretches out on her bedroll, the Med-X making her muscles feel a little loose, her body a little lighter. She can at least trust that Deacon probably isn’t going to kill her while she’s asleep; he’d had plenty of chances before, and here she was. “Does Fixer trust you?”

“Of course,” he says. His glasses are trained on the note he’s pretending to decode but his eyes are still on her.

“Liar.”

“That hurts. What would make you think she doesn’t? Has she been gossiping behind my back?” He says, acting aghast. “Sorry, too obvious?”

“By a mile,” Charlie says. Then, “Fixer would have done a report on me, then? Turned it in to Desdemona like a proper informant? Gonna have to read those when I have the clearance.”

“ _I’m_ not even allowed to read those,” Deacon says. That doesn’t mean he hasn’t, though. He’d be a pretty shitty intelligence agent if he didn’t know how to get ahold of information he wasn’t supposed to have.

There’s a few moments of silence, Charlie scratching at the peeling wallpaper and Deacon tapping a pencil against his leg.

“Did you watch me sleep, when you were following me?” Charlie asks. She’s not magic, and though she’s paranoid, there were times when she was forced to sleep in more open areas than she would have preferred.

“Yes,” he answers. “I wasn’t exclusively keeping tabs on you, no offence- we’re a busy team, and when I was sure you weren’t gonna move out very soon I’d only check in on you every few days or so. When I wanted to keep closer surveillance I’d see you go to where you were staying, then pass by in a couple of hours to see if you were still there.”

“Did you ever see me… _With_ someone else? Or… y’know, alone?”

“Yeah,” he’s not looking at her. “Briefly. It was an accident. It’s not something I’m into, just something that happened.”

Charlie sighs. “And you didn’t even pay for dinner.”

“I could do that, whenever we wind up somewhere that we can pay for a warm meal. Takahashi’s, maybe.”

“Maybe,” Charlie agrees, pressing her back against the wall. “Goodnight, Deacon.”

“Goodnight, Magpie."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> haha, joke's on them that's a DATE


	6. Raiders in the Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More bonding time! This time with guns.

She sleeps fitfully, so he has to be careful. Moving his legs against the old floorboards, groaning as he stretches, even rustling paper makes her squirm and sigh. Twice she shoots awake, hand to her gun before remembering where she is and that he’s supposed to be there. He would have been upset, even worried, if he hadn’t seen her do it during his stakeouts. Instead, it instills in him a weird sort of confidence. She already learned a lot of his lessons; you can’t trust everyone, you need to be ready to leave at a moment’s notice, go with your gut. 

Still, if anything, that makes him more suspicious of her. He knows how  _ he _ learned those lessons...

His racing thoughts are getting him nowhere. He should sleep, he decides, and lays out on the mattress. There’d been no fight over it, Magpie set it one place and her bedroll somewhere else. He stares up at the ceiling. Of course he can’t just drift off like a normal person, he’s got to lay there and think. So he does, until the sun is streaming in through the window and lighting up the copper tones in Charlie’s hair.

When Charlie well and truly wakes up, Deacon is laying on the mattress, wig off, glasses on. Neither of them had changed into pajamas- bad practice to be caught without at least some form of armor even for a moment out here in the ‘Wealth. She stretches her legs and goes for a walk around the house, barefoot and quiet. She checks herself in the mirror, mostly pleased with the disheveled look she sports but patting her curly mop of hair down a bit. Once she’s patrolled the house, double checked that no creepycrawlies have visited during the day, she goes back into their temporary hideout. 

Deacon looks up from his magazine, gives a nod and a “Hey,” in acknowledgment.

“Do you ever remove those glasses?” She asks.

“Nope,” he pops the word, turns a page.

“You should at least get a few different pairs. It’s one of the ways I caught you, y’know.”

“Yeah.” He sits up. “Speaking of, you should dye your hair. Red’s very noticable.”

Charlie sits down and rolls up her sleeping bag, clipping it back onto her pack. “Point taken,” she says, opening up a can of Pork’n’Beans. “But then, being too anonymous can be a giveaway, if people are paying attention. No way to know what’s gonna work all of the time.”

“Yeah, shit, tell me about it,” he agrees. “But you’d be surprised how far I’ve gotten with a smile and a clipboard. Managed to get some supplies off a couple of Gunners like that.”

“Deacon,” Charlie says, in a scandalized tone, “stealing, really? And here I thought you were a holy man of the church.” 

“What can I say? I’m a liar. At any given moment, I’m either jokingly serious or seriously joking. You’re batting pretty high for catching me on my bullshit, so bravo.” He claps, Charlie gives an informal bow. “ _ Your  _ problem is, you don’t tell enough lies. You deflect. That’ll get you, y’know. Tough attitude will scare off some, but if the Institute gets you… You’ll need a story. Lies will save your life, or, maybe, the lives of those around you. The people you care about. You have those, right?”

“Of course...”

“They got names?”

“Fixer, Hancock, obviously, you met Alma and William…” She trails off, looking away.

“Pretty convenient that I’ve already met all four of the people you care about. You don’t have any family?”

“Dead,” she glares at him, “thanks for asking.”

“All of them?” He raises one brow. “Sorry for your loss, but hey, at least you don’t have to worry about them getting dragged into this.”

She looks away and then back at him. “Fine. They aren’t dead. I just wish they were. Presumably they’re still back in Texas, glad that I finally left. Haven’t seen them in about a decade, so I wouldn’t know.” She blinks slowly. “Did you buy  _ that _ ?”

“It’s more believable, at the very least.” He pauses, tilting his head. “You look like you’re mid-twenties? You ran away when you were that young?”

“It was a  _ vault _ . Once you realize it’s a fucked-up experiment, you want to get away. Especially when everyone around you refuses to admit that Vault-Tec pulled the wool over their eyes. Or worse- they  _ want  _ to continue the experiment, because it  _ suits _ them.” There is some seemingly real pain coming through her voice. Deacon can’t tell if she’s just selling the lie, double-bluffing, or telling a half-truth. If he had to bet, he’d say half-truth. She’d never give the whole thing in one go, if she ever gave it.

“Is that why you take so many chems?”

She grimaces and sets down the can of beans. She keeps her eyes to the floor, Deacon in her periphery. “Don’t lecture me, okay? We can’t all be perfect saviors of the Commonwealth all the time.”

“No one’s expecting perfect. But you should think about it, especially when your actions might color someone’s opinion on the Railroad. You wanna be an agent? You can’t lose your cool.” Charlie looks equal parts angry and cornered, frozen in place. Deacon sighs. “I used to… Do chems. A lot. Growing up topside wasn’t exactly sunshine and roses, either. You can talk to me about it. Or not. But you have potential, Magpie. I’d hate to see it go down the drain like that.”

Charlie rolls her shoulders, trying to relieve some of the tension in her back before dragging her eyes back up to meet his glasses. “I  _ hate _ that word. Potential. People throw it around all the time as if it’s a compliment but what they  _ mean _ is that they think I can be changed to suit their purpose. That I’m not enough as I am, that I need to change myself to earn their approval.”

She was nearly yelling. She steadies herself, eyes closed, with an even breath before continuing, “I don’t care if you believe a word I said about the vault, or my family, or anything up to this point. The reason I want to save synths is because I don’t think  _ anyone _ should be forced to live up to another person’s expectations. Ain’t right. The indoctrination, the punishment for stepping out of line… I’ve been there. I’ve seen that. I don’t want it to happen to anyone else. That’s why I help the Minutemen. Why I  _ want _ to help the Railroad.”

“Hey, I’m sorry. Didn’t mean to strike a nerve. Or, not that deeply.”

She nods. “I know you didn’t. Still. I don’t like talking about it.”

“You got out of it, your vault. I’m happy for you. Even if you didn’t get out unscathed, you took that leap to get away. That’s admirable.”

Charlie stares at her pack as he talks, keeping still and nodding when he’s done.

He waits for her to respond. She finishes her can of beans and looks out the window. The sun is beginning to set. Soon, they’ll be able to head out. 

“It was mostly true,” she says, finally. “I did grow up in a vault, and I don’t care about most of my family. Not my parents, anyway. But my brother… He’s still there. I can’t go back, I can’t rescue him. But he’s at least relatively safe there. Even if the Institute wanted to get at him, he’s over a thousand miles away.”

Deacon wonders what she’s leaving out this time, but it’s not as important as the fact that she’s finally given him something that his gut says is true. He nods, solemn. “Did you tell Fixer?”

“I don’t want her sending men, or worse, tearing through half the country herself on a suicide mission that would take months at best. And she would.”

“Yeah. She would.”

They finish the rest of their preparations in relative silence before sneaking through the backyard as the last light of day ebbs from a deep purple sky. Deacon points Charlie in the right direction and she leads the way, her pistol in hand and her rifle strapped across her back. The stars appear along with a sliver of a moon, briefly seen and then gone again as they move through alleyways, then through the woods.

Charlie breaks the silence. “Deacon? You said you were following me because I helped a synth. But why were you following me for so long? Why didn’t you… approach me, before I decked you?”

“Couldn’t get a bead on you. You seemed like a decent person, most of the time, but you never settled down in one place for long. You never grew roots, had a relatively small social circle. Never liked talking about yourself unless you were pressed about it, or inebriated, and you told different people different stories, most of them incompatible. People don’t act like that unless they have something to hide, or an agenda. I was hopin’ I could figure it out so I’d be really comfortable inviting you to our little friend-group.”

“Well now you know.”

“And now I know,” he smiles. Sure he does. “Good thing for you, Fixer doesn’t recommend people lightly. Or ever. She landed you this job, so thank- or curse- her for it later.”

“Did she give any glowing testimonials in the report you weren’t supposed to read?”

“What? No…” He frowns sternly for a moment before cracking back to his cocksure smile. “Well, yes. But we talked, too. She said you were a good kid, that she’d trust you with her life.” Deacon knew that CherryBomb had shown Charlie vault 111… and its contents. They’d been down there for a couple of hours. Deacon had seen them enter from the same place he’d watched CherryBomb exit all that time ago. He was surprised the plastic lawn chair hadn’t been moved from his old watching spot, though the binoculars were definitely missing. 

CherryBomb talked with him about it afterward. It was… emotional. He told her about Barbra then, and she’d believed him. He asked why she knew it was the truth, and she’d told him that she knew there was no way he’d lie about having a dead spouse to her, he couldn’t possibly be that big of an asshole. He’d told her that was the best compliment he’d ever gotten, and she laughed.

“She’s good people,” he says, “so you better treat her right.”

Charlie laughs through her nose, keeping quiet. “As if anyone could get away with treating her wrong. Half the Commonwealth would be up in arms. Tell you the truth, I think that’s why the Institute hasn’t gone after her. It’d leave the region too unstable for them to play with.”

“... Huh.” It’s a valid theory.

They’re approaching raider territory. Charlie hears the raiders yelling in the distance, their usual chatter. Deacon sees the telltale flicker of fire. They crouch down, keeping as quiet as possible and find a good vantage point before they both reach for the sniper rifles strapped to their backs. 

“You want me to spot for you?” Charlie whispers.

He thinks about it for a moment. “I figure we’ll just both try to take out as many of them as we can before they figure out where we are. Have a pistol ready. Maybe a knife, too.”

Charlie nods, and they take positions, marking out where each visible raider is on the building- which faces they saw were head-on-spike decoys- which rooms look occupied. Deacon pushes his sunglasses up so they rest on top of his head when Charlie points out that the raiders on the ground outside are going to reach them first, but they’ll be night-blind from the fires. The three raiders on the roof include one very bored-looking guy with a sniper rifle and two women playing cards. Their conversation looks particularly animated.

Charlie feels a pang of guilt, seeing them at play, knowing she’s about to put an end to everything for them. She squashes it down. As bad as she feels, she’d certainly feel worse if she tried to go up and speak with them; once they got their hands on her. Didn’t bear thinking about. Raiders don’t count anyway.

Deacon does a countdown, and they shoot two of the rooftop raiders at the same time, Charlie taking out the third a moment later. The gunshots crack through the area, and the raiders on the ground level are in a frenzy. Charlie starts to raise herself up to move on to the next area, but Deacon puts his hand on her back, keeping her down.

“They’re looking all over the place,” he says, sinking back to look through his scope. “If a few of them do manage to spot us, we’ll take the bastards out and  _ then  _ run.”

Charlie nods and resumes her sniping position, taking shots of opportunity when she can. At one point she shoots a guy who’d been wheeling around, shouting and raising his arms, and Charlie didn’t see his partner until the raider was already looking down his own scope, rifle pointed directly at her. Her blood runs cold, but before she can move she hears a loud crack of a gun. Deacon’s gun. She feels dizzy from the relief, but she can only bask in the feeling of her heart pounding for a moment before one of the raiders points at them, screams something she can’t make out, and ducks behind cover. Several of his companions follow his lead, but a few of them charge in the direction he’s pointing. They hit the dirt, Deacon and Charlie firing one after the other, trading off so they can reload while their partner provides covering fire.

Once everyone’s hunkered down, Charlie and Deacon move. They keep low to the ground, crawling most of the time, as they back up deeper into the trees and brush. They sit with their back to thick trunks, and they wait. The antsier raiders end up coming closer in larger groups that are more spread out, harder to take down all at once. They fire haphazardly into the forest, putting down covering fire as they move. Charlie jumps when a laser rifle charge hits the tree she’s hiding behind, boring a hole four inches deep and lighting the bark on fire briefly.

The raiders are getting close enough that Charlie switches her rifle for a pistol, returning fire in short bursts while keeping most of her body behind the tree. They’ve take up the same idea, now that they’ve reached the treeline, and one of them gets her arm with a small caliber bullet. She has a crazy feeling that maybe they’re being overwhelmed. She slams back against the tree with a wince, sucking in breath as she uses her uninjured arm to dig a stimpack out of one of the pockets CherryBomb sewed into the vault suit. Every movement is torture, and seeing herself healing up around the bullet isn’t what she’d call ‘fun,’ either.

Eventually, they’ve killed the raiders that approached and moved in to take on the ones that stayed behind in the building. Charlie gets a stab wound on her leg from a psycho’d up asshole that charges at her from around the corner while she’s reloading. She shoots him under the chin, his knife still stuck in her. Deacon suffers a bullet wound to the shoulder that would have been a bullet wound in the chest if Charlie hadn’t shoved the raider as they pulled the trigger.

And then there’s a ringing silence in the air. The raiders are all dead, and the adrenaline is wearing off. Charlie leans against a brick wall, hissing. That knife is still stuck in her. She glares at it while Deacon takes care of his own wound. When he’s done, he approaches her.

“You did good out there,” he says, kneeling by her, cutting away some of the vault suit so he can get a better look at the wound. He sucks in his breath. “It’s in deep, and it looks like a combat knife so there are probably serrated parts on the blade, which will make removal… tricky. Wouldn’t blame ya for taking some Med-X.”

She nods, looking equal parts angry and tired. “There’s some in my bag, the pocket on the side. If you would…?” The ebbing of adrenaline and endorphins that even made it  _ possible _ for her to walk on it is catching up with her. It’s all she can do to stay standing and keep her breathing even.

“Yeah. Sure. No problem.” His qualms about drug use certainly don’t extend to when they’re medically necessary. A stimpack would just make her heal around the serrations, and that squicks him out just thinking about it. He cleans off a bit of her thigh with a cotton swab soaked with purified water, a few inches away from the wound. “Try to relax,” he says, then he injects the painkiller. Once the relief washes over her face, he helps her lie down. The less weight she has on her leg, the better.

Charlie pulls off the armor on her forearm and bites down on the worn leather, squeezing her eyes closed. “‘Kay,” she says, muffled. “Go on.”

“I need you to relax first. The tenser you are, the more it’ll hurt.” He waits a beat as she slowly breathes, relaxing her face first and then slowly, like a wave, he can see her letting her body go limp. Without warning, he yanks the knife out in one smooth motion and she yelps, then growls, then sobs out a few swears, but she stays still on the ground so he can press a stimpack into her. She slowly feels the wound close up, Deacon pressing on it to help staunch blood-flow. The scrapes and bruises that she hadn’t noticed are tingling as the stimpack works through her body. The feeling is still unpleasant to her.

Charlie wipes her eyes, shaking from the adrenaline and pain. “That hurt like a motherfucker.”

“I know,” he says. “Imagine what would have happened if you were  _ tense _ .”

She laughs. Deacon smiles and slowly pulls his hands away from her leg, checking that the wound won’t reopen. 

Charlie runs her fingers around the gash in the vault suit. She’ll need to borrow a pair of pants from one of the corpses until she can mend it herself. At least Deacon didn’t suggest she should take it off so he could treat her. The damned thing was torn anyway.

“Where’d you learn to snipe, anyway?” He’s shucked off his jacket and is inspecting his shoulder wound, yanking at the neck of his white tee, contorting his neck to try and see it.

Charlie sits up and pushes his chin so she can take a look instead. “Why don’t you tell me, first?” She gently prods the scar tissue the stimpack had left behind, then pulls back for a moment. Something looks different about Deacon but it takes her a moment to realize what it is. Then she reaches up and knocks his glasses from their perch on top of his head so that they cover his eyes once again. His eyes are too intense, too blue. This is… Better.

He clears his throat, then, “Learned it back in California, when I was… God, so young.”

“And what was a Virginia boy doing in California?” Charlie looks up at her reflection in his shades. Much better. 

“Okay,  _ maybe _ I lied.”

Charlie pulls her hand out of his shirtsleeve. “There’s some metal bits in there for sure, but the scar should hold ‘til you can get a real doctor to look at you.”

“Anyone ever tell you your hands are  _ freezing _ ?” He shivers for effect. “Just like a real doctor.”

“Deacon, I lost blood. Of course I’m cold.”

“Well, yeah, but…” He pauses. “Shit. Haven’t got a witty comeback for that.”

She smiles “I learned in Louisiana. Can’t get too far without learning how to shoot the weak spots on some of the critters there. Gators had some really intense natural armor even before the war, and now…” she shakes her head. “There’s a reason I didn’t stay there.”

“Yeah. Boston a better fit for you?”

“I suppose so. You likin’ it better than California?”

He chews it over in his head for a moment, then says “Well, at least I’m less likely to see raiders in miniskirts. Legionnaires were somethin’ else.”

Charlie laughs. She’d heard stories about them- the slavers to the northwest. She’d met people who’d escaped them, or left them, people who’d been scarred by their conquest. ‘Raiders in miniskirts’ was a better way to remember them, if only because it would piss them off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter was a lot longer than the others, somewhat by design, mostly because i just KEPT WRITING, which is probably good. I really want to get deeper into the story- I've thought about doing some prequels (esp one about the night CherryBomb and Charlie met [which would be one or two chapters just for that night, longer if i tied into their adventures together] OR my version of Deacon's backstory [much longer story]), but lately I've been really focused on this specific story...? I still have no estimation on how many chapters are left until the more explicit bits, but these two... they're shy.  
> Lemme know what you think, about the characters, writing style (i know i ramble im doing it RIGHT NOW lmao), or what kind of side-stories you might be interested in?  
> I feel a collection coming on


	7. Make Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Quips are thrown around without a care in the world, until maybe a little too much is said

They rest up for half an hour or so, letting the stimpacks work their magic while they drink some water and pat down the nearest corpses. Charlie pulls some oversized pants off one of the bigger guys and puts them on over her torn vault suit. She uses a long scrap of fabric as a belt. It’ll do for now.

Then they have to really scope the place out, make sure no one is there besides the two of them, which inevitably leads to some roach killing in the lower floors. The check for scavenge as they go. The guns the raiders were using are almost exclusively garbage, even the laser rifle, so Charlie and Deacon leave them where they lay. Charlie picks up a few bits and baubles, high-price scrap and stuff she knows CherryBomb needs (she’s always complaining about needing more screws, springs, and gears), and some ingredients that she knows will make Hancock and Alma happy. They gather some ammo, too, but the place is far from picked clean when they leave.

Deacon puts up a railsign, one that marks the location as safe, and leaves a coded note in a nearby dead drop location. “If our agent out here is paying attention, they’ll already know they’re good to move in. The sooner the better, too, or some different band of merry men will fill the space. Supermutants, knowing my luck.”

“Shouldn’t speak that into existence, y’know,” Charlie says. Her words are a little slurred, her movements a little slower than usual.

Deacon quirks a brow. “You good there, Magpie?”

“Hm? Yeah. Just the Med-X is all. That’s what it does, isn’t it?” She leans against a wall, crossing her arms and looking over at him. “I’m good to travel, before you ask.”

“I would have thought you’d built up a tolerance by now.”

“I don’t…” she sighs, looks up at the clouded shy. “I don’t use chems every day, Deacon. I binge. You don’t build a tolerance like that… Looks like it might rain.”

“We could stay in the safehouse tonight. We should probably make sure your leg wound isn’t gonna reopen, plus your reaction times aren’t at their sharpest right now,” she glares at him and opens her mouth to speak but he quickly adds “and I could use some cool-down time after that whole fuckin’ escapade. Time for a union-mandated break, don’t you think?”

“I suppose we ought to hold the fort for a night. Make sure those guys don’t come back with some friends.”

Deacon nudges one of the corpses’ arms with the toe of his boot. “I don’t think they’re coming back anytime soon, boss.”

“Deacon…” Charlie warns. She pulls a pack of cigarettes out of one of the vault suit’s pockets.

“What? He isn’t usin’ it.”

“Not...  _ exactly _ what I mean.” She lights a cigarette and takes a puff. “Don’t call me ‘boss.’ I’ll tell Desdemona, see if I don’t.” She wags the lit end of the cigarette at Deacon. “It’s somehow worse than ‘partner.’”

He grins and plucks the cigarette from between her fingers, pulling it to his lips. “Knew you’d warm up to bein’ my partner sooner or later. They always do.”

“Yeah, you had many…  _ partners _ , then?” She asks, just toeing the line between teasing and professional curiosity with her tone. He gives a snort of laughter. She’s good at that- acting flirtatious to get her way or to ply info. He watched her do it with some traders, with guards, hell, she’d done it with Deacon at the Third Rail. Maybe she should’ve taken ‘Charmer’ as her codename.

“Well, Fixer’s the only agent I’ve been partnered with for a while… She’s the one that taught me it isn’t so bad, having someone there to watch your back, to take charge in conversations so you can observe, to bounce ideas off. Before that I wasn’t such a fan of the idea. In this line of work, partnering up can leave you vulnerable. Just one more person to sell you out to the Institute.”

Charlie’s lit another cigarette for herself- she inhales and nods. “I’d sell you out for a single ice-cold ale, so the paranoia is probably apt.”

Deacon clutches his chest and stumbles backwards dramatically. “That hurts, Magpie. Deeply wounded over here.”

“I have a feeling people have said worse things to you.” She flicks her eyes from his feet to his glasses and looks  _ very  _ unimpressed by what she sees.

He laughs again. “You should try respecting your elders, young lady. What happened to those southern manners?” He can tell that she’s basically hazing him, same as he’s been hazing her. It’s companionable- comfortable, the kind of dark humor coworkers have when they hate their jobs.  Fuck, he heartily enjoys this kind of banter. That probably says a lot about him.

She rolls her eyes, “Let me guess, you were cryogenically frozen? Don’t tell me- you were a snake-oil salesman during the Gold Rush! No, wait! You’re actually a ghoul under all those face-swaps, is that it?”

Deacon shakes his head, smiling. “Not nearly  _ that  _ old.”  _ Shit, _ he’d have to use those later. “But I’m certainly old enough to be your grandpa, so-” Charlie is struggling to stifle a laugh, Deacon interrupts himself, “-what do you think is so funny?”

“Nothing, nothing. Just thinking about my grandpa,” she waves her hand dismissively. “Go on, you were saying something.”

He sighs, slumping his shoulders. “I get no dang respect around here.”

“Respect is earned, old man. You want me to respect you, then  _ make _ me.”

Deacon raises a brow over the arch of his glasses, silently pulling a drag from the cigarette. He purses his lips and looks Charlie over, thinking back to just how  _ often _ they’d traded suggestive banter. Is this time different? Usually it’s only one of them flirting with the other, then deflection. So what would happen if it was reciprocal? What if he called her on it? “Do you…  _ want _ me to make you?” he asks, flicking the ash from the cigarette, trying to keep things casual.

Charlie snorts, looks at him, looks at the ground, furrows her brow. She… she really needs to do some self-reflection later. But for now, she needs to throw him off. “I don’t think you could.”

_ Jesus Christ _ . He sucks a breath in through his teeth, but before he can respond she’s heading inside.

“Besides, your old heart might give out,” she says over her shoulder, and once she has the last word, she’s gone.

 

_ The funny thing about the final word, _ Deacon thinks,  _ is that it’s often very telling _ . He’s learned one new thing about Charlie that he’s 99% positive is true: she wants him to want her. She just issued three challenges in a row to him:  _ make me _ ,  _ you couldn’t _ , and  _ you’re too old _ . She would rise to answer any challenge given to her, ergo, she wants or expects him to rise to those challenges.

It wouldn’t be his first time having casual, non-committal sex. Hell, that’s the only kind of sex he’s had in recent years. But is that what it would be? He’s never been intimate with another agent, even one in training, and Dez would probably give him that scowl that means he’s gonna have to talk his way out of a proper reprimand for at least fifteen minutes.

But the biggest hurdle is the fact that she’s right-  not about his heart giving out, he’s not  _ actually _ that fucking old, but history does dictate that he’s not exactly the most… take-charge sort of person, whether he’s in the field or, uh, in the sack. He hates this entire scenario, that he’s thinking about this, that she gave voice to the whole fucking thing because up until now he’d been ignoring it. He’d convinced himself that the unfortunate incident he’d had when they first met- sort of, when they first interacted, anyway- was a one-off thing and now...

Fuck, now he has to actually look into  _ why _ he had a hard-on when he’d been left, tied up, with a grenade in his mouth. He had decided that it was just a weird bodily reaction to the danger and shelved that entire memory away (Glory seemed mostly happy not to mention it, until Charlie had actually shown up and she almost gave the whole fucking thing away) and now, thinking back on it, Deacon feels… embarrassed. Ashamed? Aroused?

He  _ feels _ like he’s overthinking things again. It’s not like she’s asking for a picket fence, if she’s really asking for anything after all. They’re both adults, and they’re both emotionally stunted (he’s calling it what it is) so there’s probably no need to worry about a physical relationship making things any weirder between them than they already are. It might even help. Maybe. Then again, maybe he’s just looking for any excuse to… No, no, he’s definitely overthinking it now.

He’ll just… accept her offer, if it comes up again, he decides, with a certain air of finality that lasts only a brief moment before he plays the conversation over again in his head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Listen.......... it's getting there, right? i had such a hard time with this chapter because i wanted to stay true to the characters but also there's Slow Burn and then there is actual torture and i had set out to write porn, gosh dang it


	8. Adults

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Deacon and Charlie have a conversation like adults usually do. At least, like adults with severe trust issues usually do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OH uh i should probably point out that this fic isn't gonna shy away from mental health issues. Dissociation is a common theme, and responses to trauma. Issues with sense-of-self are also gonna be brought up in detail in this chapter, and almost definitely in the following chapters. So consider this a warning, and dont be afraid let me know if I should add any more warnings

When Deacon joins Charlie back inside the safehouse, she’s laying on a mattress facing the wall. She doesn’t acknowledge him, or even turn towards the noise he makes when he shuffles in. In summary, using all his knowledge of body language, he can safely saw without a shadow of a doubt that she’s pointedly ignoring him.

“Are you asleep?” he stage-whispers.

“If I _was_ , you would have just woken me up.”

Mmm, yeah, she’s grouchy. He should probably let up. But.

“Ah, good, you’re awake. We can have a conversation. Like adults usually do.”

Charlie turns to face him, finally, and confusion colors her features for a moment before she gives him a shit-eating grin to match his own. “I suppose it _is_ about time that we had one of those. The only issue is, I’m pretty sure you’re allergic.”

“And it seems the affliction might not be one-of-a-kind.”

Charlie sighs and sits up. She’s avoiding eye-contact again, which feels like a set-back, but it’s one Deacon can work with.

“Look,” she says. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I have this weird feeling that if I told you what you’re after, you’d dissociate so hard it would almost be like a recall code, okay? I’m not… good. At words. Breaking things easy.”

“Hey, if you’re breaking up with me, just get it over with. I’m a big boy, I can handle it.”

Charlie sighs again, and opts to stare at the ceiling. “Have you ever worried about Desdemona being an Institute plant? A synth, a courser, a researcher, or something?”

Deacon gets a feeling this isn’t the sudden change-of-topic it appears to be. “This line of work? I suspect everyone at some point or another. Only person I can trust is myself,” he lies.

There’s a long silence. Charlie is mulling something over, that much is obvious. Her jaw tenses up, she shifts position (legs tucked under herself, gun within reach, weight shifted so she can bolt upright at any moment), and finally she looks up at him. “Deacon. I need you to be perfectly honest with me here. I’ll even- I can trade. I’ll answer one of your questions, no bullshit, if you can just take off your glasses and answer this: do _you_ work with the Institute?”

Hm, yeah, his mind is working on overdrive because that is, in fact, the million-cap question, isn’t it? Because if Charlie works for the Institute, this is going to play out… badly, probably. Obviously. But she’d know the answer to that question if she did, wouldn’t she? Can he pretend he’s a double-, no, triple-agent? His documents are classified on both ends because he’s _that_ entrenched, yeah, that’s a story.

The glasses though. Fuck it all.

He realizes he’s frozen up. That’s to be expected though, right? She asked a whopper, he’s allowed to sit there and overthink it. He thought this was gonna be about the budding sexual tension between them, not an actual adult conversation between spies. She’s gonna be reading into the silence, though, so he should speak. Now.

“I’ll answer that in exchange for one question. I’ll take my glasses off if you answer two.”

“Okay,” she responds, too quickly. Or at just the right speed? Had she expected his counter-offer? Shit.

He lifts his glasses very briefly. “I solemnly swear that I do not currently work with the Institute,” he says, using all the tricks to make it seem like he’s lying: making promises, not using contractions, unnecessary qualifiers, the works.

But she sighs with relief, and he’s almost angry. Goddamnit. Too obvious in hindsight, but he only had so much time.

He sets his shades back on the bridge of his nose.

“Why do you ask?” He uses his first question. “And I mean specifically, because you said ‘no bullshit,’ and that includes one-word responses.” He leans back against the wall, arms crossed.

She runs through the answer, rewording it several times in her head before trying to speak because she knows he isn’t going to take this well. He’s going to act like it doesn’t bother him. It’s going to throw him into an episode.

She pulls her pack over to her and digs through it while she speaks.

“You haven’t guessed how I know you so well? Know when you’re lying? Know that your eyes are your tell, and that’s why you keep them covered? I’ve met you before, and before I told you about it I needed to know that you weren’t with capital-T Them.” There it is. She fishes out the stealth-boy, looking meaningfully at Deacon before throwing it at him. “There’s a synth out there based on you, buddy. Sorry you had to find out like this.”

Deacon looks at the stealth-boy he caught, then back at Charlie, moving only his eyes, trying not to betray exactly how much her story threw him for a loop _or_ how little he believes it.

Charlie is pretty sure he’s being quiet so that she’ll keep talking, because that’s what people who are trying to sell a story do. They add details, explain themselves, fill dead air. She knows he doesn’t want to believe her.

“Hey,” he says, sounding offended. “You said no bullshit. That’s the biggest steaming pile that ever plopped into my lap, and I used to be a farmer, you know.”

“Great thing is, now I _know_ you don’t work with the Institute, because you’d know about him.”

She said his eyes are his tell- yeah, okay, that is mostly true. He acts like he hides them because they’re too unique, but that’s the real reason he keeps his glasses on. That doesn’t take a huge leap to intuit. As for the way she’s been keeping up with him, dodging when she can, giving him just enough info to keep him from getting fully frustrated, _that’s_ easily explained by Cherry giving her a heads-up. Hell, Cherry had given him a heads-up, so that would be only fair.

It’s just sensible enough, though. That’s the thing. He can think himself into knots trying to discern if she’s lying, but this is something she could prove. Does he really want to use his second question on that, though? If it’s a lie, the answer will be ‘no,’ and even if it’s true, the answer could probably still be ‘no.’ Considering she hasn’t offered to introduce them, he’s thinking there’s a reason for it. Maybe she’s worried about the synth’s mental well-being. Maybe the synth doesn’t exist. Bluff, double-bluff, or half-truth? If the outcome is the same, then he can just shove this aside to think about later.

Charlie is confused. Jude would’ve popped the stealth-boy by now. Maybe… Deacon is… more mature than the synth she knows? Or better-versed at handling stress like this. Or maybe he’s still in the denial stage.

“He’s safe,” Charlie says. “You don’t have to use your question on that. He’s a non-threat.”

Oh yeah. Shit. Obviously, if he wasn’t so busy trying to figure out if Charlie’s actually telling the truth he’d be focused on how _having a synth based on him could be hell for the Railroad_. He mentally kicks himself. Too many spinning plates, he just can’t focus on all of them. No matter how hard he tries. It’s best to focus on what’s right in front of you when you can’t process all the big-scope stuff, or at least that’s how he sees it. Stuff right in front of you is more likely to kill you before you can do anything about it.

He misses having Cherry for a partner. She always worried about the long-term impacts of actions: setting up settlements, making allies, supporting different factions. That was nice. He could focus on Railroad stuff in the background, shoot at what she pointed at, think to himself, bounce ideas off of her. Cherry had her secrets, sure, but she wasn’t that hard to figure out. He knew where her loyalties ultimately lay.

Wait a goddamned second. Deacon feels so impossibly overwhelmed, slow on the uptake, slow to process. What if Charlie is trying to say that _she’s_ the synth based on him? It would explain a few things. Her hair. Her paranoia. The way she can keep up with him.

He does have one question left.

“Who… are your parents?” he asks. May as well get as much info as he can. If she doesn’t have any, she’s a synth. If she isn’t a synth, then he hasn’t wasted is question.

Her brow furrows. “Biologically, or the people I call ‘mom’ and ‘dad’?”

“Both?”

She rolls her eyes very theatrically, but she answers pretty quickly for all her non-verbal complaints. “Daniel and Lisa Rosenthal contributed my genetics. Once I made it out of Louisiana, Paul and Stephanie García took care of me. Paul’s a better dad than my sperm donor, even if that ain’t sayin’ much. Stephanie’s the best outta all of them.”

None of those names mean anything to Deacon, but at least he has them now. Assuming Charlie isn’t lying, and she doesn’t seem to be. Gotta trust his gut, right?

“We should go to Goodneighbor tomorrow,” Charlie says. She lies back down, lacing her fingers together so she can rest her head in her hands. “On the way back to HQ. Got some stuff I wanna drop off with Alma. Assuming you don’t take that stealth-boy and run.”

Deacon looks at it. He’s been twisting it around in his hands, fidgeting while he thinks. Damn. It _is_ tempting. Maybe she really _has_ met his double.

“Good night, Magpie.”

“Good night, Deacon.”

She is _so_ happy they didn’t end up talking about feelings or trying to quantify their bickery flirtations. She’d trade away her entire life story if it meant she didn’t have to explain whatever the hell is going on in her head. Hopefully talking to Jude will help. At the very least, she’ll be able to tell him that the man he was supposed to replace isn’t dead after all. That should make him feel better. She just hopes he isn’t too high to comprehend what’s going on, or too sober to deal with it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't @ me im really tryin here  
> Jude is in Goodneighbor with Alma, so look forward to that. Two Deacons. Imagine.  
> 


	9. Half-Baked

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Charlie shows 'James' around Goodneighbor and he gets bullied some more. Downside of always wearing disguises is that you can't really build a rapport with the locals. Upside is that you get to make your 'first impression' with a little bit of informed forethought.

“You might want to stay clear,” Charlie says as they approach the gate. “My crowd probably isn’t your speed.”

Meaning that they’re drug addicts. Obviously. This is Goodneighbor.

“I think I can handle myself, Mags.”

She grimaces. “I’m just saying. It’s probably best if we’re not together while we’re in the city. They know me here. Calling me Magpie or Maggie ain’t gonna fool anyone, and I can be a big beautiful distraction if you let me.”

He grins. “And how often do you come through here with a new, ah,  _paramour_? If anything, that’s more believable than the two of us showing up independently. Plus it means I can keep an eye on you without risking suspicion.”

“If you want to play the fool, then by all means,” Charlie scoffs. “But Alma ain’t stupid. She’ll recognize you no matter how many wigs you put on.” She eyes him with only the barest hint of undisguised disgust.

He carefully pulls a comb through the pompadour wig. “Hey, babe, this wig ain’t comin’ off, ya dig?”

That disgust gets cranked up to eleven, Charlie looks like a child that just ate a lemon. But she gives a snort of laughter, so Deacon knows he’s off the hook.

“Glad you already got the ‘acting dumb’ part down pat,” she says. “All of my ‘paramours’ were dumb shits that I was definitely either trying to rob, cheat, or lie to. And try not to act too jealous when I spread the love around. My marks are usually spineless. Or into it.” Charlie steps closer to wrap her arm around Deacon’s and he already feels tired. Younger women, is he right?

She smiles up at him, all teeth and snark. He can see the predatory glint in her eyes, the same one she’d had when she’d threatened him at their first interaction. He resists shivering. He resists thinking about why he needed to resist shivering.

“So… boundaries?” she asks.

He thinks about it for a moment. “I’d prefer my clothes stay on, if it’s all the same to you.”

“Yeah, we can both agree on that at least.”

Oh, okay. Ouch. “Beyond that, do whatever you need to to sell the act.”

“You wouldn’t freak out if I touched your chest?” She keeps her eyes forward.

“I might, but I could spin it. Stay in-character at least.”

Charlie nods. “You know how to kiss?”

“Does the pope shit in the woods?”

Charlie snorts, Deacon congratulates himself on the deflection.

Once they’re through the gate, Charlie springs right up to Daisy to unload some of the spoils from the freshly-safe safehouse. Bits and baubles, a few smiles, and she’s done. A fresh handful of caps jingles merrily in her pack. Deacon can’t help but notice how Charlie’s hand is touching Daisy’s, just a bit, as they both rest them on the countertop.

“And who’s the fella?” Daisy asks. Her facial muscles move to raise eyebrows that are no longer there.

“Oh you know…” Charlie says with a hand-wave and a smile. “He’s new in town, thought I’d show him around.”

“James,” says Deacon, moving forward and holding out his hand for Daisy to shake. “Pleasure to meet you.”

“Well,” says Daisy, “at least  _ this one _ has manners.” She gives a perfunctory handshake and turns her attention back to Charlie.

“Yeah… Sorry about that one. Johnny got rid of him, you know. ‘Can’t have those Diamond-City types thinkin’ they run this joint.’” Charlie growls out in an impression of Hancock.

Daisy laughs like gravel being compacted. “And ain’t that the truth, sister?” She gives her own impression of the mayor.

Deacon looks over his shoulder, expecting Hancock to appear. His timing is usually pretty impeccable. Today, though, it seems that he won’t be summoned just by the very mention of his name. Big Brother isn’t omnipresent after all.

“Hey doll, we gonna continue that tour any time soon?” Deacon has his hands in his pockets, leaning forward with an eager air to him.

Daisy rolls her eyes and points. “Hotel’s that way.”

Deacon at least has the grace to blush. 

Charlie laughs. “Thanks, but I’ve got a few more stops to make. Gotta drop some stuff off with Alma, check in on John and Fahr. James here is patient, aren’t you sweetie? He’ll wait on the doorstep like a proper well-behaved gentleman.”

Deacon huffs and leans back against the shop counter. “If you say so.”

Daisy laughs again. “Where’d you find this one?”

Deacon goes to speak, but Charlie shoots him a look. Right. Dumb. Spineless. Not exactly a difficult character for him to play. He shrugs, gesturing for her to tell the story.

“Saved him from some muties. He was outnumbered, cornered, one of their hounds ready to gnaw his leg off. Pretty sure he was crying.”

“Not how I remember it,” he mumbles.

“Boy, you are always biting off more than you can chew, aren’t you?” Charlie says. She’s on her way out of the shop. “Catch you later, Dais!” She turns on her heel and makes a bee-line for KL-E-O.

Deacon hangs back and sighs.

“I like her, y’know?” He carefully puts on a shy smile. “Wanna stick with her, but I feel like she… I could use some help, here.”

“Well, have you tried telling her that?”

“I’m afraid of coming on too strong,” he says. Not a lie. “She doesn’t trust easy. I don’t want to scare her away.”

Charlie is talking with KL-E-O. Her shoulders are tense and she’s leaning onto the counter with a nervous smile. KL-E-O is leaning back, arms crossed under her chestplate, legs wide. Deacon has a feeling Charlie would get more caps from any other weapons dealer, and that Charlie doesn’t give a shit.

“She gives what she gets,” Daisy says. “And that’s all the help this old woman’s got for you. You wanna seduce her, go talk to John.” She points and ah, there he is. Maybe the chems are delaying his reaction time.

Deacon meets up with him outside, meets his outstretched hand in a firm shake. Hancock pulls Deacon in to drape his arm around Deacon’s shoulders like they’re old pals. Deacon is reminded of his and Charlie’s first meeting again. Familiarity just to hide the threat.

“Welcome to Goodneighbor. See you’ve already met Charlie.”

Charlie is currently counting out bullets on one side of the counter, caps on the other. KL-E-O’s processors whir.

“Yeah. She’s something and a half,” Deacon lends a softness to his tone that is wonderfully evocative of someone with a half-hidden crush. He pats himself on the back for his acting skills.

Hancock laughs, all grit and gravel. “Yeah. You got it that bad, man?”

Deacon gives a short, nervous laugh.

“She does that to people,” Hancock says with a handwave. “You met William yet?”

_ Yes _ . “No, is he someone I should look out for?”

Hancock thumps his open palm on Deacon’s back. “Nah, I just wanted to know if I was gonna get to do the honors of letting you know that Charlie’s got some backup around here. You treat her like dirt, we put you in the dirt. Got me?”

“Yeah, don’t worry.” Deacon stuffs his hands in his pockets, shrinking down, looking as non-threatening as possible. “Glad to know she’s got people who’ll stick up for her. Name’s James, by the way.”

Deacon makes a mental side note: Charlie seems perfectly capable of taking care of herself, so why the protectiveness? If it had just been Hancock, he could chalk that up to Hancock just being like that, but CherryBomb, Daisy, William, Alma… Seems reasonable to him that Charlie might be known for getting in over her head, or else not resolving her own issues to her comrades’ liking.

“Alright James. Just remember this: you keep your head down and we’ll get along just fine. My city doesn’t need any more bullshit,” Hancock warns.

“Noted.”

Charlie walks out of Kill or Be Killed with a smile that grows when she sees Hancock. They embrace briefly, Charlie planting a kiss on his jaw.

“You behavin’ yourself, Char?” Hancock asks.

“What? Me? Never,” Charlie answers. “Well, actually, I’ve been helping out the Minutemen, and rescuing James here. I think I have the moral high ground for a minute. Oh, and I’ve got a shipment for Alma, so...”

“A bonafide wasteland angel, then,” Hancock says. “Better get that stuff off to her, we can party later. You know where to find me.”

‘James’ definitely feels like a third wheel here when they practically smolder at each other. Hands in pockets, shifting his weight from foot to foot. Uncomfortable but timid. Perfect character acting.

Charlie grabs him by the wrist and smiles back at Hancock as she drags Deacon over to the Rexford.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i didn't get as far into the story as i wanted but i wanted to post something to show i was still alive/working on this  
> the next chapter will definitely have Jude in it i swear


End file.
